OREANDA-NEWS. Yesterday, the Ministry of Finance announced to OFZ auctions, offering RUB 6.2bn in RUONIA floater RFLB 17 and RUB 10bn in bullet RFLB 23 (YTM 12.69%). It also held an investor conference call to discuss the draft of the budget revision. Speaking about debt issuance, Director of the Public Debt Department Konstantin Vyshkovsky said that in 2015 the borrowing programme would remain intact at RUB 1.0tn, of which RUB 200bn would be earmarked for the exchange of illiquid sovereign issues. Hence, domestic issuance is to total RUB 800bn (or RUB 180bn on a net basis), of which only 10% has been secured so far.

In addition, Vyshkovsky mentioned that the Ministry would like to focus on floating instruments and was now finalising the framework for inflation-linked bonds, which might appear on the market as early as 2Q15. The proportion of bullet-floater OFZ is to depend on market demand.

The OFZ market remained on a stronger footing, with the belly and long end firming 0.3-0.4pp in price. Hence, yield-wise, the curve tightened 10bp in the middle and 5bp on the long end.